Adaptive Arts
The Adaptive Arts Program offers an introduction to the performing arts through workshops that have been custom designed for individuals with functional limitations. They promote their social and cultural inclusion through increased contact with the performing arts, enabling them to reveal their full creative potential.
The program targets adults with functional limitations (mental health issues; physical, sensory, or intellectual limitations) or who are experiencing social and cultural exclusion (francisation, literacy, new arrivals). Participants must be affiliated with a socio-community, cultural, or health-care organization.
Through the Youth Adaptive Arts Program, workshops are also available for young people with functional limitations.
2024-2025 Season
The program offers cultural mediation projects based on various disciplines, such as dance, singing, music, theater and creative storytelling.
Each project includes:
- Four 2-hour workshops in the chosen discipline, led by professional artist-mediators trained to interact with people with functional limitations;
- A public performance, scheduled at the end of the last workshop of the series, allowing participants to present the collective creation they have built up over the weeks.
Workshops will take place in the Salon urbain of Place des Arts, which has been designed to suit the needs of the participants’ specific situations, allowing them to take part comfortably, securely, and confidently.
At the conclusion of each series of workshops, the public performance will take place in the Espace culturel Georges-Émile-Lapalme of Place des Arts, where friends and family of the participants and the general public can attend.
Chant choral
This series of workshops invites participants to explore the pleasure of various forms of choral singing. Participants are guided through the creative process with a multitude of exercises that require both creativity and collaboration—spoken and sung voice work, controlled improvisation, rhythm, and canonical exercises.
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Danse créative
Photo credit: Mikaël Theimer
This series of workshops invites participants to explore dance as a means of expression through the creation of choreographies and collaborative experimentation involving movement, rhythm, spacing, and improvisation.
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Musique percussive et voix
Photo credit: Mikaël Theimer
This series of workshops guides participants through various rhythm and vocal exercises, participants learn to improvise and work together to create original musical atmospheres using percussion and their voices. Group creation and exploration are the focus of these workshops.
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Theatrical Expression
Photo credit: Mikaël Theimer
This series of workshops explores the physical aspects of theatre, inspired by visual and sound elements. Participants are encouraged to construct a space in which they can socialize, express themselves, create, and flourish by practicing the theatrical arts.
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Mots et mouvement
Photo credit: Mikaël Theimer
This series of workshops invites participants to create a story from paintings or music. They can then add rhythm, movement and life through a mix of artistic disciplines.
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Musique percussive corporelle
Photo credit: Emmanuelle Loslier
The workshops enable participants to discover music through body percussion, as well as orchestral percussion instruments, by creating repeated rhythmic sequences, accompanied by choreographed movements in space.
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Registration
All projects are free of charge.
- The organization must form a group of 10 to 25 participants. The maximum number of participants will be discussed upon reservation.
- Once the group has been formed, the organization can register and reserve its timeslot. Participants cannot register individually.
- The attendance of at least one social worker or accompanying person per group is required (the ratio will be discussed upon reservation and may be revised after the first workshop).
To register: artadapte@placedesarts.com or 514 285-4275.
Registration period: June to December 2024.
Monique-Lefebvre Prize, awarded by the AlterGo organization
In 2020, Place des Arts’ Adaptive Arts Program won the very first Monique-Lefebvre Prize, awarded by the AlterGo organization. To date, the program has allowed hundreds of participants and dozens of organizations to explore the performing arts through workshops.
The Adaptive Arts Program is made possible through the financial support of the Fondation de la Place des Arts and the Sandra and Alain Bouchard Foundation.